Clint Barton and the Paper-clip challenge
by CrazyForYuu
Summary: Clint Barton was bored, and armed. The world needs to look out, a storm is coming... AU and slightly Crack!fic
1. Paper-clip challenge: Clint

**I was going to make this into a One-Shot but it got away from me...  
Please disregard any weirdness in the time-line, I'm taking some artistic freedom with it.  
Also, I'm no scientist and very bad at science. Please disregard the bad or faulty science-talk, but I'm open for suggestions if you can give them constructively.  
Constructive criticism is always welcomed, but flames will be ignored. If you don't know the difference then don't comment at all.**

Clint Barton, mostly know to the world as Hawkeye, was bored.

Nothing was happening. No crazy robots, no evil aliens, no mutated cockroaches (and hadn't _that_ been an interesting afternoon!) and no psychotic overlord that wants to enslave the human race.

The first week of nothing had been a blessing! A whole week of relaxing and doing whatever they wanted.

'Well, almost', thought Clint as he thought about the Avengers' Theme Park(TM) that he and Tony had spent an entire day designing only for the drawings to disappear, and then reappear in the blender the next morning.

Clint blamed Natasha.

The thing was: now it was three weeks ago since they had been called out for a mission and Clint was slowly losing his mind in boredom. Tony was building away on some thing or another, Bruce was playing with some chemicals in his own laboratory, Steve was in his room drawing, Natasha was reading a book (she wouldn't tell him what it was about, but Clint was suspecting a love-story. That woman was a scary closet romantic...), Thor- who was actually on Earth for once -was spending almost all of his time out with his girlfriend Jane, Wanda and Vision was off travelling the world since neither had seen much of anything with their own eyes before, Sam was out on his veteran-volunteer-therapy-thingy, and the tower's newest resident Bucky Barnes- also known as Steve's childhood friend and the Winter Solder -was locked up in his room doing God knows what.

Clint had already finished all of the paperwork that had been piling up from previous missions during week two when the boredom was only starting to creep in, the new target-range had been used to the point where he could do it with his eyes closed and his hearing-aides turned off, no one wanted to go out to do anything, and there was nothing for him to do in the tower.

As it was, he was sitting in an office somewhere in the tower (he thinks it's the 15th floor).  
The office was unused, and Clint wasn't even sure what an office was doing on this floor since all the floors above the 10th had restricted access ever since the Avengers decided (or rather since _Tony_ decided) to make this their home-base.

The office was fully equipped, with a desk, a chair, paper, pens, a cork-board, a shelf with empty folders, other small office material, and even a computer and a printer. The computer had been taking his boredom away momentarily, but there is only so many cat-videos you can watch before they all start looking the same.

He was leaned back as far as he could in the chair, while stretching out his legs on the desk, staring up at the ceiling. About an hour ago he had snatched up a paper and a marker from the desk and made a crude target and pinned it to the ceiling, and had since then been flicking tacks up with his thumbs.  
With a sigh he put away the remaining tacks and looked up at his masterpiece.

Up on the ceiling was a crude drawing of a man, with a cape and horns, absolutely covered in tacks of different colors. Two green ones was sticking out where the eyes would be, four black ones were clustered together tightly over the mouth-area, the hands- that were raised in a surrender-position -had on one blue one in each, and then rest of the body had red ones sticking out in, what might appear like a random pattern for most, but Clint knew that they were most of the vital areas of the human body.

Clint was pleased with his work.  
Maybe Tony will let him keep it where it is so that he can come back and admire it later?

With a deep sigh, Clint removed his legs from the desk and straightened his chair with a bang that echoed inside the bare office. Putting his elbow on the desk and resting his chin is his hand, he surveyed the desk and his eyes was caught by the small box of paper-clips sitting innocently at the corner of the desk.  
Picking it up he brought it up to his face, while contemplated the possibilities.

The box said '100 metal paper-clips for your everyday needs'.

As a light-bulb went of in his head, Clint let a truly devious smile spread across his face.  
"Oh, this could be fun!"


	2. Paper-clip challenge: Tony

Anthony 'Tony' Stark, also know to the world as Iron Man, was in his element.

He was, as previously stated, in his workroom building on his next project. AC/DC blasting out of the speakers, the smell of welded metal and oil, the feel of an idea coming together under his hands... Tony loved it!  
The genius was entirely engrossed in what he was doing, and didn't even notice when his stomach started grumbling about him missing lunch.

Swearing softly as he was, once again, stung by the electric wires he was tinkering with, Tony sucked lightly on his stinging finger for a few seconds before getting back to trying to figure out why the connection between processor and energy-supply was malfunctioning.

He was momentarily distracted when he felt something hit the back of his head, but he figured it was just a fly or something. Nothing to worry about.

Then he felt it again, and he waved a hand behind himself to try and discourage the annoying fly from getting closer.

The next time he felt it, he spun around with his arm waving wildly around him. Scanning the air around him he saw nothing that could have been the cause, no fly or anything, so he assumed that he had manage to scare whatever it was off.  
With a satisfied huff he turned back to his project.

Except, as soon as he grabbed a hold of the the cables again he felt something again in the back of his head.  
He flinched hard, in anger and surprise, and accidentally touched the uncovered piece of the wire in his hand and gave himself quite a shock.

Literally.

Tony yelped as he snatched his hand back, and cradled it against his chest while blowing as the slightly tingling skin. Frowning in annoyance, he scanned the workroom again, but found nothing new.  
"FRIDAY, mute the music", he said and the Rock-music suddenly stopped, and the silence that followed was almost dizzying.  
Tony shock his head, and tried again to find whatever it was that was disturbing his work, but once again nothing stood out.

When he turned around to see if whatever it was had moved to another part of the room, he AGAIN felt something hit the back of his head, and he swirled around only to be met with something meeting the centre of his forehead instead.  
He blinked in surprise as a soft tinkering sound drew his attention to the floor.

Between his feet he found a paper-clip, a small metal one, and once he noticed that one also noticed the five other paper-clips that were scattered over the floor at his current workspace.

Blinking in bafflement, Tony bent down to pick one of the paper-clips up and examined it. There was nothing weird about it, it was just an ordinary, metal paper-clip.  
But where did it come from?

Tony's contemplation was cut short as another paper-clip bounced off his forehead, and he gritted his teeth in anger when a disembodied giggle echoed across the room and the realization hit. "Clint...", he muttered with a murderous aura surrounding him.

The previous giggle turned into cackling laughter, and Tony turned his head towards the ventilation opening in the room. His hand closed around one of his tools on the workbench beside him and he lifted it with the intention of throwing it at the shaft and, hopefully, give the damn bird a headache inside of the annoying bird's metallic hideout, but before he could he was hit with two different paper-clips once again.  
One hit his wrist so hard that he dropped the wrench he had picked up, and the other hit him right between his eyes, making him flinch back. The flinch caused him to re-position his feet, and the wench he dropped _just happened_ to fall right on one of them.

No matter what Clint would say, Tony was dead-certain that it had been on purpose.

Tony howled in pain when the wench made contact with his foot, and instinctively brought it up and cradled it in his hands. His swearing was drowned out by the cackling that had increased in intensity and was creepily echoing across the walls.

(In the common room of the official Avengers Floor, Natasha and Steve looked up from their separate activities as a creepy cackling started echoing from the walls, before looking at each other and sighing.)

Gingerly putting his foot down on the floor again, Tony finally snapped.

"Goddamit, birdbrain! This means war!", he screamed at the empty room, before addressing his AI, "FRIDAY, activate protocol BirdTrap!"

"Yes, sir!", was the AI's enthusiastic response.

The laughter was abruptly cut off when an ominous whirring started up somewhere in the vents.

The whirring was followed by high-pitched yelps, crashes, explosions, shrieks, and other questionable noises, before it all went silent only a few minutes later.

Tony nodded with satisfaction and smirked at the thought of Clint Barton, _Spy __Extraordinaire_, being trussed up like a Christmas ham somewhere in the vents, but FRIDAY had to burst his bubble.  
"Sorry, sir," the female AI said, "the bird managed to avoid capture".

Tony sighed in disappointment, "It's ok FRIDAY", he said comfortingly, "We'll get him next time. For now he will back off and lick his wounds at the very least".

With that he had FRIDAY turn the music back on and once again lost himself in the complexities of engineering and the mind-numbing hard work.

* * *

Meanwhile, Clint was, as Tony said, licking his wounds in his own room. He smirked, even as he carefully applied some anti-septic to a cut on his shoulder.  
"Totally worth it!", he said, before wincing in pain as he touched a sensitive part of the wound.


	3. Paper-clip challenge: Bruce

Bruce Banner, who only selected people know has the alter-ego of the green monstrosity they call the Hulk, was really enjoying these weeks of calm.

Since his part of the 'Superheroing' is mainly focused on destruction and smashing by his alter-ego, he really savored the time he didn't have to, or accidentally, turn himself into a big green monster with the intelligence of a 4 year-old.

Bruce was a genius, and he was _marginally_ bitter that his most appreciated contribution to the world didn't focus on his intelligence or his research, but on the accident that turned him into something he hated.

So yes, he was very grateful that the evil of the world seemed to have taken a vacation so that he could focus on his research and relax.

He was currently in his own private lab, that Tony had built for him.

Just in case he had an accident (or a 'Hulkccident' as Tony called it...) that would force his transformation, all of the lab's storage was built inside the walls so that he couldn't throw them around, and if he ever destroyed any of the tools or machines, Tony would just replace them.  
He tried insisting that he should pay for the things he breaks himself, but Tony waved him off and had him sign something about the copyrights of the Hulk.

Apparently there was a lot of merchandise made...

Bruce was trying to focus on the disc he currently had in his microscope, but he felt his eye twitch as he once again ignored the paper-clip that bounced off his forehead.

When the first one had hit, he had been extremely startled and he admits that the squeak he had let out wasn't the manliest sound he had ever made. Ha sat blinking at the innocent paper-clip that had landed on the table in front of him for a few seconds before frowning and huffing in annoyance.

He thought that it was either Tony or Clint (or both) having a laugh at his expense, so he decided to just ignore it and keep working.

When the second one hit him, in the exact same spot as the first one, he knew for sure that it was Clint, but figured that he would get bored and stop eventually if Bruce just ignored him.

That had been 20 minuted ago.

Bruce, and every one else to be honest, tended to forget that Clint was a spy and assassin before he was an Avenger, so patience wasn't really an issue for him. So for the last 20 minutes Bruce had been sitting at his desk, staring into his microscope but not really seeing anything, and trying to ignore the paper-clips and the green tint his fingers had started to take on.

When the next clip bounced of him and made it's tinkering noise as it landed on the metal table, he felt a growl fight its way out of his throat and echoed around the room.  
The stream of seemingly endless pieces of bent metal ceased their abuse of his forehead for a beat at the growl, before once again continuing their assault.

Bruce managed to hold on for 5 more minutes before he exploded in a green flurry of rage and destruction, and he knew no more until he would wake up practically naked on the floor of his very messy laboratory.

The Hulk, now in control, threw the metal table and everything on it across the room before having an epic tantrum in the closed up, and practically indestructible, workroom of his more pacifistic counterpart.

Once he had worked off most of his rage, which he had no actual source for, he stood panting in the middle of the room for a few seconds, staring around the room with his black and green eyes, trying to see if there was anything else for him to smash. Preferably the source of his 'host's' rage.

He was just about to calm down when he was hit in the forehead with something that turned out to be a piece of bent metal, and his rage flamed up again from deep inside him.  
He had found the source of the rage!  
He must smash it!

A roar echoed across the tower.

* * *

Up in the ventilation shaft Clint took in the destruction and the green rage-monster causing it, and mentally gave himself a pat on the back for a work well done.

He would apologize to the doctor tomorrow with his famous hot chocolate, but this opportunity was just too good to pass up.  
He managed to lure out the Hulk with paper-clips!

He cringed lightly when the Hulk threw a very expensive-looking piece of equipment against the wall, but he knew that Tony used the money that they made from their 'fame' to pay for anything they broke, both on missions and on leave, so the broken equipment would be replaced before morning.

Surprisingly, and luckily, enough the Hulk was the most popular one of them...


	4. Paper-clip challenge: Natasha

Natasha Romanoff, known to the world as Black Widow, was _not _a closet romantic.

It just so happened that the books she enjoyed reading _contained_ romance. Also, it was a great study-subject to learn how people behave romantically.  
Not because she wanted to be in a relationship! It was just good to know, you know, in case she had to go undercover as a romantically involved person at some point...

The point was: She was not a closet romantic and Clint can go jump out of a window. In fact, she might help him if he kept trying to convince everyone else of it.

Speaking of said bird...

Natasha threw a hand out, a small throwing knife glinting as it left her hand, and entered the small gap in the opening to the ventilation shaft.  
A strangled yelp, followed by a childish whine made her smile.

"Natashaaaaa", came the whine from the vents, "I hadn't even done anything yeeeeet!"

Natasha gave a very un-lady like snort, "'Yet' is the key-word here, isn't it, _птичка_?"

The vent swung open and banged lightly on the wall under it and the blond bird poked his head out, upper body supported by his elbows.  
"But you cut my hair!", he said accusingly as he pointed up to the left side of his head where, indeed, a piece seemed to have been cut off roughly.

"Now it's all crooked", whined the disgruntled blond again, and Natasha started tuning him out, and went back to reading, as he went into how she was destroying his good looks and how he had the most sex appeal in the team, and how she _obviously_ did it on purpose because shewas jealous.

She reacted automatically when she felt something coming towards her, and caught the small paper-clip that was aimed at her head. Lowering her hand, Natasha raised an eyebrow threateningly at the now sweating blond in the vent.

"Y-you know what?", Clint stammered out as she inched her other hand closer to her hidden knives, "I think I hear Tony calling me, bye!"

Next, she was left looking at an empty and open ventilation shaft, as the sound of frantic crawling got further and further away from her.

Natasha smiled in satisfaction, and once again went back to reading.

* * *

In hindsight, targeting Natasha might not have been his brightest idea, but Clint was a firm believer in 'if you never try, you'll never fly'.  
The mistake he made, was trying to get a hit in _after_ she had already dismissed him.

Clint shuddered. If anyone can make looks that kill, it would be Natasha.


	5. Paper-clip challenge: Steve

Steve Rogers, also know as Captain America, was at peace.

He didn't usually have the time to indulge in his drawing since he came out of the ice.  
In the 40s during the War, he used to have a lot of time between fighting, and he took advantage of every break he got to draw his fellow solders, the new areas of the world he found himself in, some enemies that had made an impression on him, both positive and negative, and some memories from home, like his mother.

It was therapeutic, and helped centre himself in the world of hate and bloodshed he lived in.

After he came out of the ice, he had some time to get used to the new world he found himself in, but all of that time went to learning as much as he could so that he wouldn't be too blind-sided if he were to be put on missions again.

Then the Avengers happened and what followed was missions, after missions, after mission. Not only with the Avengers, but also with the S.H.I.E.L.D. taskforce that Fury had put him in charge of, and he never got the time to relax and just draw like he used to.

After the first week of no emergency missions, he started relaxing after having spent several days on edge, just waiting for the alarms to go off and call them out.

When nothing seemed to happen the second week either, he started to feel bored. You can only work out so much before it gets repetitive and redundant. So he started sorting through the boxes of things that S.H.I.E.L.D. had saved from his time before the ice, since he hadn't had time for it before.

Among the things, he found a few pictures (of Peggy, the Howling Commando, Howard, and even of him before the serum with his mother), his old military uniform from before the serum (he held it up against his body and laughed at the size), and his old drawing pad.

He had spent an entire day reminiscing, sometimes being joined by his best friend Bucky who was still struggling a bit with his memories.

The day after that he had gone to Tony, old and crumbling drawing pad under his arm, and asked the man for a pencil to draw with.

The genius had blinked at him, taken one look at the drawing pad in his hands, and said that he would go get one and for Steve to wait in the common room.  
Tony came back an hour later, the bags in his arms stopping Steve from snapping at him about how long it takes to get a pencil, and dumped his loot in the soldier's arms.

Tony had then left Steve blinking at the bags in his lap as he went back to his lab without a word.

The bags turned out to contain art-supply, enough to last him for a life-time. He got started right away, drawing a picture of the team and leaving it in Tony's workshop as thanks.

After that he spent most of the days drawing one thing or another, some days he felt nostalgic and only drew things from his past, and some days he felt at home and drew only things from this age. The team, the view from the tower, the park he went jogging in, people he had met since waking up, and many other things.

Right now, he was drawing a picture of the pair of pigeons that were cuddling together on the balcony railing outside of the window, but was distracted when something hit him in the back of his head.

He swirled around on the high chair he was sitting on, but couldn't see anything. When he turned back to the pigeons, they had flown off, leaving him an empty railing to look at.

Frowning in annoyance, he turned his back on the view and concentrated on his drawing. He had already drawn out the mayor outlines, so he should be able to finish the rest of it from memory.

Before he could put his pen back on the paper again, he felt something hit him smack in the forehead, and he blinked in surprise at the small metallic paper-clip that landed on the unfinished peace of work in his lap.

Frowning in annoyance he brushed the clip off his paper before standing up, drawing pad under one arm and the other positioned with his hand on his hip. Tony liked to call it his 'scolding pose'. He looked around again but couldn't see the blond head of hair that he was looking for.

"Clint! I know it's you, get out here!", he demanded as he scanned the room.

The only thing he got in return was silence, and two paper-clips that bounced off his pectorals. One in the perfect centre of each muscle.  
Steve sighed as the room echoed with muffled giggles.

Why did he have to babysit these children?  
He was a good man, and an honest to God Christian who still went to church every Sunday he could (which was two weeks in a row this month! Father Lowell should be proud!), and a soldier who had volunteered for a human experiment just so that he could fight for his country.

It hit him suddenly, like the paper-clip that bounced off his forehead, just how he would handle this. Clint was acting _childish_, so he would treat him like a child!  
"Clint!", he called out sternly into the seemingly empty room, "If you don't stop _right now_ I will take away your Cookie-privileges!"

The silence that followed his threat was absolute, and Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek so that he wouldn't snicker at the image of Clint's, most probably, horrified face. He had to keep a stern face to be able to pull this off, and he couldn't falter now!

"I'm not joking around", he continued with a warning tone, "No more chocolate-chip cookies!"

More silence followed, before Steve's ears picked up a faint grumbling coming from the walls, followed by what can only be described as stomping, except Steve knew that the other blond had to be crawling to fit into the vents. He decided not to think about it, and just be happy that his ruse had worked.  
Feeling somewhat smug, he sat down in his seat again and flipped his drawing-pad open on a new page (the pigeons were a dead end at this point), and started the outlines of a chibi-Clint munching on a cookie. He might give it to Natasha later.

"And Tony says I can't lie", he mumbled with a huff.

* * *

Clint was horrified!  
How dare that old popsicle threaten the cookies! The Cookies!

He was a spy. A SUPERspy. He was trained to never falter, to never fail, and to never negotiate. Then that stupid Captain had to bring the innocent cookies into this!  
_That Monster!_

He continued to grumble to himself as he retreated to his nest. He picked up a new box of paper-clips, to refill his ammunition, and set of into another vent.

Revenge would have to wait until later.


	6. Paper-clip challenge: Thor

**Thank you everyone that has fav:ed and followed this story!  
****And to reviewer johncorn: You didn't have to wait long to find out ;)**

* * *

Thor, the Prince and Heir to the throne of Asgard, God of Thunder and Guardian of Midgard, was conflicted.

On one hand, he was really enjoying the extra time he was getting to spend with his Lady Jane, but on the other hand, he was a warrior and was starting to long for an honorable battle to partake in. If he had been at home, he would have set out for a quest to one of the less civilized realms, maybe for a hunt, to burn off some steam.  
But there was no such possibilities on Midgard, unless he were to leave the entire realm entirely for an unknown amount of time and that was not an option. He couldn't leave the midgardians when he was specifically tasked with guarding them from threats.

His new friends at arm, the Avengers, were formidable warriors in their own right, and would most likely defend their own home efficiently if he were to disappear for a while, but even so he was unwilling to let his new companions fight for themselves when he could be here to help them.

So he left his hammer in his room, and took Lady Jane out on a 'date', as she called it, and tried to relax his battle-reflexes trying to urge him into action.

A few hours later, Thor walked back into the tower and as soon as he laid eyes on Mjölnir again he felt a tension he didn't even know that he had, relax inside him. He gratefully changed out of the midgardian clothes that the Man of Iron had acquired for him when he expressed an interest in 'fitting in' better when he went out.  
Clipping on his cape, because after centuries of wearing it he practically felt naked without it, he decided to spend some time in front of the device that was called 'Teevee', in the common room of the tower.

Swiping Mjönir from its place on the table, Thor made his way from the room he had been assigned, and while he walked he thought about the exciting tale that he hoped would continue to be told on the wall of moving pictures.

He had been engrossed in a tale about a warrior who fought monsters with his brother, and then they found out that the younger brother was destined to destroy the world.  
The story was heartbreakingly familiar to the big blond.

But unlike the horrible fallout (with emphasis on _fall_) from the revelation of his own brother, these two seemed only to get closer and fought their destiny together.  
He was most curious about the rest of the tale. He made a small note to himself to ask someone in the team about the name of the tale at some point.

The couch squeaked slightly in protest when he threw himself upon it, but he ignored it since it was made specifically to survive almost anything. It took many tries from the Man of Iron before he found the perfect couch for his unconsciously destructive guests.

This particularly one have managed to survive a 'friendly' wrestle match (Between Thor himself and Captain Rogers, that Barton insisted on calling 'Battle of the Blonds'), the young Lady-Witch on her monthly bleed and she couldn't find her stash of chocolate (Barton had apparently accosted with it and hid it away in his nest for some reason), and even a surprise Hulk-out when Dr. Banner's tea was spiked with something weird (the Man of Iron blamed Barton, but there were suspicions...).

The point being: The couch would survive.

"Magical Ceiling Lady", Thor boomed out once he was situated properly, "What tales are being told? Will the warrior-brothers of the black chariot continue their story of monsters and magic today?"

"_... I will certainly see what I can do, Mr Odinsson"_, the Ceiling replied promptly.  
Only a few seconds later the wall of moving pictures lit up and the tale he desired started playing across the screen.

Being engrossed in the story, clenching his hand on the handle of his hammer every time a monster would attack, he was wholly unprepared when something suddenly bounced off of his forehead.

Battle-instincts taking over, he surged up from the couch into a fighting stance with a yell. Lightning exploded from Mjölnir, swiftly surrounding him and applying his armor as it went.  
Once the light had died down and Thor was left standing, panting with adrenaline, full armor and battle-hammer at the ready, he realized that he was still very much alone in the room.

Lightning still somewhat crackling around his form, he looked around in confusion but still found nothing amiss. He frowned and rubbed at the spot on his forehead where he had sworn that something had hit him, but there seemed to be no evidence to prove it.

Just as he was about to dismiss everything as his imagination and sit down, he felt something make contact with the side of his head. The projectile, whatever it was, made a slight 'tink' noise as it bounced of his head and hit the armor-piece on his shoulder.

He ignored it and instead swung around with his hammer raised, prepared to rain down lightning and pain upon his enemy, only to meet an empty room once again.

Thor was now very suspicious, and he narrowed his eyes as he once again surveyed the room, "Show yourself!", he shouted out to the _seemingly_ empty room.

No verbal answer was forthcoming, but the new projectile that struck him between the eyes and made it's own 'tink'-noise as it connected with his chest-plate was answer enough.

A growl of annoyance worked itself out of his throat.

"Come and fight me face to face, you coward!", he demanded of his unknown enemy, while he instinctively brushed a hand over his chest where the projectile may have left a trace in it's descend.

Another 'tink' made him stop short.

He had not felt any other projectiles hit him so where had the noise come from?

Looking down, Thor saw nothing suspicious on the floor, but then he realized that _nothing suspicious was on the floor_!  
Where was the projectiles that had hit him earlier?

Casting a searching look across the floor gave him no answer, so he turned to the places he last noticed them: on his armor. His cape made it difficult to see his shoulder, but he had found nothing suspicious on his chest so he had to take a look.

He raised his arm to move his cape out of the way when something odd caught his eye. There, on his metal wrist-band, was a small piece of twisted metal wire.

With a frown of befuddlement, the hidden assailant momentarily forgotten, Thor plucked the thing from his wrist. It didn't resist in any way, so how did it stick to his wrist-band?

After looking at the object and finding nothing to explain the situation, he loosened his grip on it and let it fall down to the ground. He had no need for it if it would not lead him to his still unseen enemy.

At least, dropping it had been his intention.

As soon as he let go of the object, and it fell out of his hand, it instantly attached itself to the corresponding hand's wrist-band with another 'tink'.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but tried to remove the object once again. This time he threw it down to the floor instead and felt slightly smug when it didn't get stuck on his wrist again, but the satisfaction was brief as the object only bounced on the floor once before attaching itself on the metal buckle on his shoe.

"What kind of sorcery is this?", Thor mumbled under his breath, extremely confused.

A low chuckle started echoing around the room before evolving in an all out cackle of delight, and Thor had a sudden feeling of dread pass through him at the sound.

* * *

Clint was extremely amused by the over the top reactions from their resident alien.

He had to give himself a few seconds to overcome the hilarity before he started laughing out loud and gave away his position.

He might be awesome, but he had no plans on being struck by lightning today. Imagine what it might do to his hair!  
Natasha has already done enough damage, thank you very much!

Once he had control over himself, he focused on his current target again and made the same _fantastic_ discovery that Thor himself had made, except Clint understood exactly what happened.

Metal armor + lightning/electricity = Magnetism

Basic science, really, but nothing Thor would have ever learned.

He couldn't have stopped the chuckle from emerging even if he had wanted to.

* * *

The next few minutes was spent frantically, and unsuccessfully, trying to deflect the confusing and annoying attacks of the magical metal wires. As soon as the weird projectile made contact with any metal part of his armor, it would stick there until he removed it, but if he tried to remove any of them he would be hit with another two in retaliation.

Huffing in exertion, he used what seemed to be a brief moment of break between attacks to breath and take in the situation.

Every part of metal on his armor had at least one piece of magical projectile attached, and even Mjölnir was covered in a few of them!

"Show yourself, Invisible Sorcerer!", he bellowed towards the ceiling, with a lack of anything else to shout at.

Once again, no answer was forthcoming, yet no new projectiles were fired upon him either.

Frowning in confusion, Thor glanced around, looking for any kind of glint in the air that would reveal another attack, but found nothing.

He carefully straightening from his battle-stance, and when no further attack happened he huffed in amusement. "The coward has fled, rather than face me in combat", he boosted to the empty room before re-seating himself proudly in the sofa, forgetting instantly that he is still covered in pieces of metal wires.

* * *

Meanwhile, Clint is crawling back to his nest to once again stock up on ammunition, occasional giggles still escaping him as he goes.

(When Scott and Sam later walked in they were confused as to why Thor was sitting in the sofa, covered in small, metal paper-clips, and why the room looked like it had gone through a thunderstorm. They silently decided to ignore it.)


	7. Paper-clip challenge: Bucky

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes was having some problem with his memory.

For decades all that he had answered to had been 'the Asset', while his enemies called him the Winter Solder.

Pain, killing, pain, cold, pain, killing, pain, cold. It was all that he had known for what felt like an eternity.

And then out of nowhere comes Steve Rogers, -Captain America-, -Target-, little Stevie from Brooklyn, and turned everything around. Or rather, turned everything right.  
The point was, that he had his good days and his bad days. Some days he was sure that every person coming through the door was either going to kill him or order him to kill someone else. Those days he didn't leave his room, just waiting and avoiding all food that was given to him.  
Other days he woke up and freaked out over the weird metal arm attached to his body, convinced that it was still World War 2 and that he was still in Brooklyn. Those days it took Steve hours to calm him down and even convince him that he actually was the little runt that used to run around getting his ass kicked in alleyways.

Then there were days like this, days when he remembered everything that he was, from the young soldier Bucky and Steve's best friend, to the Winter Soldier and ruthless assassin.  
Thanks to a lot of therapy and Steve's endless patience and support was doing wonders for his bettering, and the good days were getting more frequent every week.  
Of course the last few weeks of calm were also helping a lot... No sudden alarm going of, summoning his best friend away to battle something he wasn't cleared to help with. No explosions of enemies trying to break into the tower (the last one that tried had gone through his own bedroom window and would never eat with utensils again... not after he slammed the window down and severed most of the guy's fingers. The bastard should be grateful that is was Bucky's sleep he had disturbed and not the Soldier's...)

It was only thanks to the last few weeks of calm that he didn't accidentally activated the Soldier when something connected with his metal arm, making a soft 'tink' noise on impact, when he was slumped in an armchair by the window, trying to get some sun while he read a first account history-book.

Jumping in surprise, Bucky surveyed the room for possible enemies. Finding none, he let himself stare at the small paper-clip that had landed on the floor next to his armchair.  
The little piece of metal had Clint Barton written all over it... metaphorically.

Stark was more of a person that walked right up to you and poked you with an electric stick (Yes, that has happened. It was his first week at the tower and the Soldier woke up and tossed the couch out a window. Couch #5).

Steve didn't want to do anything that might even have the _slightest_ chance of setting the Soldier off again.  
Dr. Banner was more interested in keeping his own monster at bay to bother with him.  
Natasha wouldn't throw anything at him if it wasn't a knife meant to kill.  
Thor didn't even know what a paper-clip _was_!  
Falcon and Ant-man were both too new in the tower, like himself, to dare to upset anyone.  
And the Witch and Vision were too focused on each other to even notice him.

So yes, that left Barton; the sharpshooter, assassin and self-proclaimed prank-master.

Bucky seemingly went back to reading his book, but was stealthily sweeping his eyes across the room again. This time with a real suspect in mind.

The door? No, it was closed. The window? Too much glass to be able to hide, and too far up without any contraptions. The ceiling? No hiding-places and no foothold. The ventilation? Yes, there! A shadow of movement, a blond hair and a glint of metal.

Satisfied with his findings, he went back to actually reading.

30 minutes later, he felt his patience thinning dangerously for every 'tink' that sounded in his ear. The annoying bird in the vents had used the time to hit different places on the arm, after the realization that it sounded 'tink' sounded differently depending on where you hit, and was now trying to play some kind of tune on the increasingly annoyed assassin's metal arm.

While the Captain America-theme song was amusing the first time he got it right, after the fifth time he was getting the urge to kill, and that was while he was _Bucky_ and not the Soldier...

Bucky threw his metal arm out quickly, resulting in a glint of metal, a startled squeak and a satisfied smile. The smile evolved into a chuckle at the whine from the vents, "What _is _it with you creepy assassins and my hair!"

Another glint of metal made Bucky raise his metal arm and caught the knife that he himself had thrown at the bird in the vents between two fingers.  
He glanced at the vents then and gave a smirk at the blond head of hair that was sticking out with a glower on his face, "I thought you wanted me to even it out for you", he answered smoothly.

Sure enough, the sharpshooter's hair now had two _almost _even cuts on both sides of his head, making it look like he had a subtle mohawk, if not a little lopsided.

"You and Natasha are conspiring against me! Just because you two aren't allowed to mar my stunning face and gorgeous body doesn't mean that you can attack my beautiful blond locks!", the entire upper body was currently sticking out of the vents so that the other man could wave his arms around as he argued with the very uninterested Bucky.

Bucky listened to the annoyed tweeting of the bird on one ear as he could finally concentrate on his book again, "Uh-huh", he hummed to the other man distractedly.

When the complaining suddenly stopped, Bucky glanced at the vents and met the glare with another smirk, "This isn't over...", the blond muttered as he backed back into the vents and closed it with a 'bang'.

Once the sounds of the bird's retreat had faded into nothing, Bucky just continued reading but not before sending a wink towards the small red-head at the door, holding what he was pretty sure was a camera. He hoped she got enough blackmail and that she would let him take a look himself at a later date.

* * *

Back at his nest, Clint ran his hand through his hair as he looked at his reflection.

It didn't actually look that bad...

He might actually spare the frozen tin-man his revenge.  
Taking out his own knife, he set about to even out the sides a bit so that it wouldn't look like his head was constantly crooked.

**Next: Special guest - Peter**


End file.
